Training and Development

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QUESTION 01

Q1. What are the key issues identified in the case that would have caused the situation.

As per the context, Care-Link is a company that has traditionally been very lavish with their training expenditure and is known to be a company that spends well on its training and development of employees. However, with the arrival of the new CEO, investigations were held on the overall performance of the company. The writer has been able to identify few main reasons that may have caused this situation.

Training is a systematic process of developing skills, knowledge, attitudes and technology needed to assist a person perform better in his current job we. Therefore, training has a significant impact on a person’s job. It is the sole responsibility of the company to provide sufficient training needed to carry out the job in an effectively and efficiently. Training is focused on how people will be able to do things differently after given training. This is turn will reflect on the organizational success as well as it has a cascade effect starting from the individual performance, team performance, departmental performance and at last, organizational performance. According to the training cycle model #2, there are three main reasons for performance problems.

Gap in Knowledge, skills and attitude

Unfavourable work environment

An obstacle to perform

It is important that the company identifies which one of these main reasons have caused a performance problem. Looking at the case of Care-Link, it can be assumed that the company is facing such a performance issue and that is the reason why the new CEO has taken action to investigate on the high expenditure utilized for training in order to justify it against the performance. Hence the writer is coming to the assumption that no evaluation and return on training were done to justify employees’ performance against the expenditure. As per the text, the company had been spending significant amount to conduct training, however the effectiveness of those trainings must have not been evaluated to justify its cost.

When providing training to employees, it should be done appropriately after identifying who requires what kind of training. This could be done through a training need analysis or a competency mapping. By doing a training need analysis, the immediate supervisor with the assistance of the HR department is able to identify the skill gaps, knowledge gaps, advancement in technological aspect for which the employees should be trained to or reasons otherwise. Through a training need analysis employees can be given effective training to perform well in their respective areas and develop skills required for same. In the case of Care-Link, the writer is assuming that another main reason for the situation that had occurred is due to improper training analysis done for the employees and employees were selected adhocly. To justify the above statement, the writer would like to quote from the text where it says “employees failed to explain why they attended the program and their explanation was that they were nominated by the Training Division”

When designing and resourcing training programme, the process is to first identify training need, then the question is to see if there are internal resources to handle the training, if there is, the company can design and develop the program internally, conduct training and measure effectiveness of training. If resources are not available, out source external parties, provide proper briefing to the trainer and give the exact requirement, conduct training and at last measure its effectiveness. Further, when designing a training programme, there are factors that influence the design as well. Namely; resources available, skills of trainer, type of trainee, principles of learning, nature of material to be learned and learning objectives. In the case of Care-link, it is said that the company has been providing overseas training and other outsourced trainings. Product related training was done inhouse by the training manager himself who is an experienced person being in the industry for over 10 years and who had had experience as a medical rep for 2 years as well. Writer assumes that it is a wise decision made by the company to handle trainings in-house. However, the effectiveness of such programs is questionable. As stated above, there are many factors that influence a design of training. Hence, the writer is assuming that factors that affect and influence training were not taken into account when taking the decision to hold trainings in-house. It is possible that the trainer lacks certain skills to keep the interest of the trainees. It is possible that the environment (which is in-house) is too comfortable to be able to learn, the principles applied for learning could also affect the effectiveness and collectively this could also be a reason for Care-Link to have faced such consequences.

As discussed above, training need analysis is the process of identifying performance requirements and the gap between what performance is required and the current performance level. When referring to the perceived needs and actual needs, there could be a difference between these two and it important to identify the actual training needs in order to make training effective and also make in an investment rather than an expenditure. Being a company that is lavishly spending on its training, the company should know the expenditure well enough to evaluate the worth of representing the company with the motive of providing employees with training. According to the text, in house and outsourced trainings were given to the employees. However, in house training was limited to product training which was handled by the training manager. Assuming that the training manager has less knowledge or outdated knowledge on the current industry and its changes, employees will not benefit as it would collectively be effective with the knowledge of certain soft skills. According to the text, employees have not gained knowledge in other soft skill trainings such as communication skills, selling skills and customer service etc. Even though he has 10 years experience, the guarantee of him being up to date about policy changes, rivals, competition is questionable. This could be another reason for the company to have faced such a situation.

Care-Link consist of over 200 employees according to the context. The case study also mentions that there is training manager who should ideally be looking into the whole training aspect of employees together